The World is Mine
by SugarsweetB
Summary: Before the Potter's unfortunate demise, they spoiled little Harry as much as they could; he was their darling baby, and they had more than enough money. Thanks to this, Harry developed a rather... princely attitude.


Something Freaky on the Front Step

When Petunia Dursley of No. 4 Privet Dr. opened her front door one Wednesday morning to put out the milk bottles, she was not expecting to find a baby sleeping on her front step. No, she had been planning on another normal day. To find a baby on her front porch was irregular, strange, it was simply _not _normal. Petunia hated anything that wasn't normal. She _feared_ the irregular. So, she acted as anyone else would when confronted by his or her fears. She screamed. Not only did she scream, no. She screamed, slammed the door closed, and took off back upstairs so fast you would have thought that it was Satan himself she had found sleeping on her doorstep and not poor, cute, innocent little Harry.

"Vernon! Vernon!" she hissed. Vernon grunted in his sleep, gave a great huff through his nose, and rolled over. Petunia's horsey face turned a rather unattractive shade of Pepto-Bismol pink. "Vernon!" she said again, a bit louder this time. "Wake up you great tub of lard! There's something freaky on our front step! Take care of it before the neighbors see!"

At the word 'freaky', Vernon Dursley heaved his considerable girth straight up into a sitting position and began to look around wildly. His mustache was sticking up on one side, and twitching sporadically like the legs on a dead cockroach. "Where? Where is it?" he growled. "I'll take care of it! Just you see! No bloody freaky things going to hurt my family! No sir! Not today! Not-".

Petunia cut him off. "Yes, yes I know, now take care of it!" Vernon turned to look at her, and she saw that his eyes were still glazed with the remnants of sleep. She huffed, sounding much like the horse she resembled, and tugged on Vernon's arm. Doing her best to get him dressed in proper clothes without any help from him, she said, "There's a baby on the front porch. I want you to take it to an orphanage-" here, Vernon tried to interrupt with: "A baby? Why-", but Petunia cut him off once again. "I don't know, Vernon, just…get rid of it." Vernon's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. Petunia saw this and snapped, "Not like that you fool! Like I said, take it to some orphanage or something!" Here, she gave one nasty tug on his moustache to straighten it out, and sent him on his way. Vernon stumbled out of their shared bedroom, more than a few hairs missing from his moustache.

Vernon gave a great sigh before plodding down the hallway. When he reached the stairs, he gave another great sigh and plodded down them, one-by-one at a sedate pace. He paused only at the front door to nick his bowler hat from the coat stand and place it on his head. Opening said door, he saw the baby his wife had told him about. And indeed there it was, a baby about his own little Dudder's age, but nowhere near as handsome a child. After all, no baby was as attractive as his Duddykins. It simply wasn't possible. Dudley was simply perfect in every way that mattered. But, back to the baby that was currently fast asleep on the Dursley's front step. With a grunt, Vernon bent over to pick the baby up. When he stood straight once again, he was red faced and panting, as though he'd just run for a very long time. With baby in arms, he waddled down the sidewalk to where his car sat in the driveway. He set the baby on the passenger seat, not wanting to contaminate his Dudder's car seat with any 'freakishness', walked back around to the driver's side, and was soon driving off in search of the farthest orphanage that he could reach within the day. He didn't even notice the letter that had fallen when he'd picked the child up.

Vernon was good at following directions, and when he returned home that night, he felt proud. He had done just what his wife had told him to do; he had protected his family, and now he was able to come home, eat a good dinner, read the paper, and perhaps watch the telly before he went to bed.

* * *

><p>Jasmine sighed and rubbed at her eyes. Glancing at the clock, she slumped down in her worn, lumpy, chair. It was already past midnight. She looked at the stacks of paperwork still on her desk and let her head droop down. This Cinderella was long past her expiration date and it showed. She pushed her hands up above her head and arched her back, grimacing at the symphony of popping sounds that her stiff, aching spine produced. She glanced around her dimly lit office for a few minutes before stepping out from behind her beast of desk, and by association the computer that resided there. She swayed as she walked over to one of the hard, wooden chairs situated in front of her desk and plopped into the nearest one. Landing on her bony bottom with a slight grunt, she leaned forward so that her elbows were resting on her knees and her chin was cradled in her hands. Gazing at the desk, she thought that it was an imposing thing. Bulky, heavy, it seemed to take up the entire room and made you feel as though it was looming over you with it's chipped edges and tall stacks of paper. Breathing out heavily through her nose, she dropped her head and thrust her hands through her hair, mussing it and scrubbing at her scalp before pushing it back and just sitting there, hands in messy dark brown locks and light brown eyes staring at a patch of fading light on the floor between her feet. She just paused, staring, before shaking her hair out with her hands and heaving herself to her feet with a loud huff. It had been a long day.<p>

Five minutes later found Jasmine trudging down creaking stairs, her hand clutched tightly to the heavy wooden banister as she added up sums in her head. She was entirely focused on the numbers flashing across her mind, so when the silence that permeated throughout was suddenly broken by the sound of the doorbell ringing, she was so startled that she missed a step. She felt a brief flash of fear as she leaned too far over and her stomach rose up into her throat before she swiftly righted herself. She stood there for a few seconds, her heart pounding in her chest as she got over her brief fear before continuing down the stairs at a more rapid pace. By the time Jasmine got to the door she was highly irritated, as whoever was on the other side had never stopped ringing. She took a moment to compose herself before opening the door with a polite but tired smile. She had a greeting halfway off her lips before a harried looking beast of a man unceremoniously thrust a bundle into her arms. Her hands were barely around the child and he was rushing away as fast as his disproportionally short legs could carry him. She was left stranded in the brightly lit doorway, watching the disappearing figure of an obese man with a crooked, uneven mustache with a green-eyed baby in her arms. Jasmine just grit her teeth, closed her eyes, and let out an explosive breath from her nose. Turning on her heel, she headed back up to her office: a long night indeed.

* * *

><p>Harry looked around the room in disgust. His pudgy little one-year-old hands were clenching and unclenching spasmodically as he examined every cobweb-infested corner and dingy carpet stain. His hands clenched again once, twice, before he forced himself to relax and resisted the urge to cringe into himself. Who knew what kinds of diseases were living in this hovel? It looked like it hadn't been cleaned in years! Maybe centuries! And gods, the chair!<p>

The hard, wooden chair that Harry was absolutely sure had once served as a torture device in the Spanish Inquisition or something. Could it have been any more uncomfortable? And who put a one-year old in a chair anyways? A neglectful person, that's who; he could fall off and crack his head open and die or something.

When the woman looked up from the screen to glance over at him, Harry stilled and sat upright. Harry didn't like the look in her eye. She seemed normal enough, but stranger danger and all that, right? He had heard his parents talking once or twice, about crazy people who liked children a little more than they should, luring them into strange cars with promises of candy and puppies before snatching them up. Harry wasn't going to be one of those children.

Her attention quickly returned to the display and he slumped, breathing a sigh of relief once the potential-pedophiles eyes had turned away from him. With the steady, almost soothing sound of her tapping away at the computer and the fact that he hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, all things considering, Harry found that his eyelids began to droop. He tried to fight it, and he did a commendable job, but he had reached his limits, for even though Harry was such an amazing, wonderful, fantastic little boy, even he could not fight Mr. Sandman. Not even with all the thoughts of what a potential-pedophile like Jasmine could do to a poor, vulnerable, sleeping child such as Harry. And so he fell asleep, plagued all the while with nightmares of warm, wriggly puppies and dancing candy and white vans sitting on street corners.

* * *

><p>Another five minutes passed before Jasmine finally finished filing her report and she stood up, though Harry didn't wake. She smiled gently down at him, brushing his hair back from his forehead to reveal a scar in the shape of a lightening bolt, oddly enough. A frown tugging at the corners of her mouth, the woman lifted him into her arms with a slight grunt. Had Harry been awake, he would have been greatly offended, and even in sleep, his mouth pinched slightly before smoothing out again. Jasmine's first step had Harry grabbing onto the shoulder of her blouse, grimacing at the slightly scratchy feel of the cheap fabric. Nevertheless, he continued to sleep and rested his head on her shoulder. Inhaling deeply, he appreciated the generic floral scent of her perfume and the barest whiff of vanilla that reminded him of the warm chocolate cookies that his mother used to give him. Harry hummed softly in his sleep. He could really do for one of those now. At the tiny sound, Jasmine immediately shushed him and crooned; bouncing gently she walked, rubbing the little boys back soothingly as she carried him to his hopefully-temporary room.<p>

* * *

><p>Meanwhile, miles and miles away, I won't tell you how many as I'm not exactly sure, a lovely woman with long black hair who looked much younger than she really was sat in a plush chair, her gazed fixated upon a crystal ball in front of her. The room she was in was spacious and smelled vaguely of lavender. She wore a heavy, white sweater, cinched at her waist with a wide brown belt. A forest-green skirt twitched across the floor every time she moved and danced around her bare feet. Heavy cream-colored curtains were drawn across the large, floor-to-ceiling windows that lined one wall, blocking out most natural light. The room was far from dark, however, illuminated by the glow that emanated from the crystal ball that had captured all of the woman's attention, and with good reason. A smile slowly slithered across her face like a wriggling snake before she suddenly gasped and shot straight up out of her chair with a happy squeal. She quickly ran to the door and down the flight of stairs just outside them, through many hallways and several doors before she finally found herself sitting in a living room. There was a woman sitting on a couch while knitting, her kneedles moving almost too fast to see. A boy sat on the ground before her and staring at her lovingly. The man sitting beside the woman was reading the Daily Prophet, glancing every now and then at the boy on the floor with a small smile.<p>

When the woman entered the room with a happy exclamation, all three looked up curiously before going back to what they were doing previously. The older woman frowned, slightly out of breath. "Well?" she asked. "Aren't you going to ask what it is that I'm so excited about?"

"I'm sure you'll tell us mother," the man said with a fond smile.

She sniffed imperiously before she dissolved back into giggles and ran to plop herself into the chair across from the little family. "I need you to pick something up for me tomorrow. It's very important. And you must go with him Marie."

Marie blinked and paused in her knitting. "Why? is it large?"

The woman giggled. "Oh no, not at all. In fact, it's very small."

"As small as a mouse?" the little boy asked.

"No, not quite that small," his grandmother replied.

"Is it dangerous?" asked her son.

The woman huffed in exasperation."No, Gerard, it is not..." she paused, thinking."Well...I guess it would depend on who you asked," she said. He nodded and went back to his reading while Marie continued to knit.

The little boy glanced between both his parents and his now-pouting grandmother. Shifting around so that he was facing her, he asked, "What do you need us to get you Gran?"

The woman beamed. "I'm so glad that you've asked Aubrey, as you will be helping your parents with this mission." Aubrey smiled. "What I need you three to pick up is..." she drew out her sentence for dramatic affect and Marie and Gerard at last looked up, "my new grandson."

Marie dropped her knitting needles. Gerard's copy of the Daily Prophet fell to the floor. Aubrey's eyes expanded to the size of saucers. The woman apparently didn't notice their shock as she continued to talk and coo over how cute her new little grandson was. And that is where we shall leave them for the time being.


End file.
